Focus on Politics for 27 January 2012

During last year's election campaign the National Party campaigned strongly on the theme of financial responsibility. It said it would get the Government's books back into surplus in 2014-15 and the official forecast released just weeks before the election predicted the surplus would be as high as one-point-five billion dollars. This week, in his first speech of the year, the Prime Minister, John Key, has dampened down public expectations, saying the predicted surplus is now only three to five hundred million dollars.